Martin School of Public Policy and Administration
"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself." -John Dewey
By educating our youth, we are essentially preparing them for the rest of their lives. What do we do then when that preparation falls quite short of the mark, and we’re sending our young adults into the world unprepared to face the everyday challenges of a typical job? There has long been a troubling achievement gap in central Appalachia, where few students score at the proficiency level for the rest of the state, especially in math and science. The AMSP project was created to close that gap.
AMSP partners include 52 school districts and nine higher education institutions across Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, and the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation. The higher education partners focus on pre-service training to prepare future teachers to tackle these issues. However, because it may be quite some time before today’s student-teachers comprise a any majority of the teaching force, partner universities and colleges are also targeting existing teachers through professional development programs to attain more immediate results.
Professional development activities are planned, implemented, and facilitated by K-12 teachers working as peers with higher education institution partner faculty and have included intensive hands-on training at Summer Institutes. The Institutes have focused on the enhancement of teachers’ knowledge of math, science, and technology content and pedagogy as it is tested for state assessments. To afford all teachers the opportunity to participate, travel and daily living expenses are reimbursed, and classroom supplies are provided at no charge. To reinforce what is taught at the summer institutes and other in-service training courses and to provide a support network for teachers, the AMSP created Mentored Implementation and Embedded Professional Development at the request of the schools. This allows teachers to introduce new concepts to their students and receive feedback and data regarding the process. Other programs include Access Algebra and the Partnership Enhancement Program (PEP).
The qualitative assessments of the professional development activities thus far have proven quite
positive. Regina Donour, a chemistry teacher at Letcher County High School says of her AMSP participation, “[It] … has made me look more at what and how students learn rather what I am teaching. My classes are more question-driven in that I spend more time presenting content … in such a manner that it encourages students to ask questions and probe into the material.” She continues, “My interaction with my students has become more of a mutual pursuit of learning rather than me dispersing information.”
Although the AMSP’s goals focus primarily on the improvement of students’ math and science performance, activities span a broad range of topics to ultimately prepare students for life after secondary school and often incorporate families into the equation. Involving parents provides students with a support network beyond the classroom, which is crucial to continued success. One such AMSP activity is the College Reality Stores, which are a one-day college ‘awareness’ program for AMSP participant students and their families. At the event, participants visit various ‘stores’ manned by higher education personnel to ask questions and receive information about college preparation, funding opportunities, and the application process. The AMSP addresses the achievement gap from many angles because for these students, attending college is a luxury, not a given. They do not grow up with the typical mentality that they will graduate high school and then simply advance to their dream college.
The AMSP seeks not only aids the transition to college but also to prepare these students to excel in college by challenging them every single day. One of Donour’s former students raves, “Ms. Donour provided me a very sound foundation for college-level chemistry. During my two chemistry courses under her, she pushed me to reach my potential. There is never a time that I feel “lost” during a college lecture. I believe that her high school course was more demanding than my college-level course.” She continues, “She tested what you knew, not what you memorized. Her style of teaching, while frustrating at times, has more than prepared me for college chemistry.” That statement may not be something to stumble across in a research journal, but it is proof-positive of the AMSP’s effectiveness.
As promising as the qualitative data have been, they alone cannot vouch for the program’s effectiveness. This is where Dr. Genia Toma and the Research, Evaluation and Technical Assistance (RETA) project factor into the equation. Dr. Toma and her team of PhD students are applying tools of empirical analysis that originated from the field of economics. These tools provide a quantitative measure of the student achievement effects of teachers’ participating in the AMSP professional development while controlling for other variables that may influence the student outcomes, including the past score of the students. Dr. Toma’s research methods have shown to be so promising that the RETA project was awarded an additional $1.5 million NSF grant to continue the project through September 2011.